48% believe president obama and republicans will reach an agreement but 43% say they won't. meantime, president obama is giving a stern warning to republicans who may be trying to use the debt ceiling as leverage. >> if congress in any way suggests that they're going to tie negotiations to debt ceiling votes and take us to the brink of default once again as part of a budget negotiation, which by the way we have never done in our history until we did it last year, i will not play that game. >> we should say that the president and house speaker john boehner did speak by phone yesterday. that was the first time in a week. no one is saying what the conversation was about. shortly after that call treasury secretary tim geithner went on cnbc and said the white house is ready to go off the cliff. >> if republicans do not agree to that, is the administration prepared to go over the fiscal cliff in. >> absolutely. there's no prospect to an agreement that doesn't involve those rates going up on the top 2% of the wealthiest. it's only 2%. >> i want to bring in "usa today" bureau chief